The following is an excerpt from Soldiers in Training by Brother Daryl Coats.

In a great essay on the current path of fundamentalists, the editor of Straightway magazine, Dr. H.T. Spence, makes this greatly enlightening statement : "Though Fundamentalism has endeavored to be strong historically in ecclesiastical separation, one of its great weaknesses from its beginning has been its lack of personal separation." This can be found in the June-July 2005 issue of the magazine in an article entitled "Ask for the Old Paths."

In fundamental circles it is popular to teach that an "apostate" is one who is lost with little hope of redemption. This definition makes "apostate" synonymous with "reprobate." Perhaps this definition keeps the continually-backsliding fundamentalists of our day from ever having the ugly word used to describe them, since they are saved. However the dictionary definition of an apostate is very applicable to the modern fundamentalist. Webster's 1828 dictionary defines an apostate as "one who has forsaken the...profession to which he before adhered."